A Little Botulism With Your Delicate, Flaky Crust?

In the aftermath of the initial explosion of the Graphical Standards controversy(scroll down to the first brilliant post of the day), I've heard it said on a few lists that we should give the Board of Directors of the RWA a break, because after all, they're all volunteers.

As I said in a comment on Shannon's blog--when I spend ten bucks on an apple pie at a bake sale to support my kids' Little League team, I know the pie was baked by volunteers.

I STILL DON'T EXPECT IT TO GIVE ME FOOD POISONING.

Tara Taylor Quinn and the rest of the BoD lead what they continue to insist is a professional organization devoted to the support and encouragement of the careers of nine thousand-plus professional writers. But the level of communication coming out of the BoD does NOT intimate "professional" by any stretch of the imagination. It screams "amateur hour" in the loudest possible terms, and now all the other, REAL professional writers' organizations are laughing at us. Because we look like just what we are--a bunch of clueless, ditzy dames with identity issues, led around by the nose by a faction a lot more concerned with their image as "nice ladies" than with market realities. (Market reality: SEX IS SELLING BETTER THAN EVER BEFORE. If you don't/can't/won't write it, that's fine, but stand in the way of those who do at your peril. We have as much right to be in this organization as you do, until the definition of Romance is altered to exclude us. And we intend to fight tooth and nail to see that it doesn't happen.)

But what is especially galling to me is all the talk of what the stress of the current controversy is doing to certain members of the BoD, personally. How it's giving them aches and pains. How they get nothing but misery from these positions, save for a few good friendships.

May I recommend a nicely aged Kraft American to go with that Whine in a Box?

They knew the kitchen had the potential to get plenty toasty. The door is that'away when and if they can't stand the heat. My God, can you imagine a man, in the same position as the leader of a huge organization composed largely of other men making the same complaints??

Now I'll be accused of lacking compassion. I'll be accused of being a raging feminist (guilty as charged), and wanting to be like a man, and wanting everyone ELSE to be like men, and yada yada yada blah blah blah.

But you know what? There IS a standard of professionalism in communication between the Board of Directors/President and the members of an organization this large.

And it's gender-neutral.

And this? This...thing that happened yesterday?

This ain't it.